Mean People Suck

This was originally going to be a post on juries, and it still is, but it's expanded to one on the practice of law and, maybe, on life in general.

And the them is . . . Mean People Suck

Okay, what a giant whopping piece of insight that is, right?

Well, a lot of people haven't gotten the message, fairly clearly, and it actually does impact itself in the practice of law, and in daily life.

Here's what I mean, and I'll start with juries.

Well, actually I won't, I'll start with bumper stickers I started noticing a few years ago which appeared on the back of cars owned by young people.

Those bumper stickers said:  "Mean People Suck"

This phrase is one that caught on amongst millenials and it apparently caught on to such an extent that the basic phrase completely ran over the top of an originally obscene and stupid phrase to become the meaning it now has.  Mean people, the young are proclaiming, suck. We don't want them, we won't tolerate them. 

And its not just a simple bromide. They mean it.

On to juries.

Juries, as everyone knows, are supposed to be made up from a cross section of society. And at least around here, they really are. That means that the attitude of juries towards various things changes with the times.

A person could go on about this at length and really go down a rabbit hole, which I don't intend to do, as I intend instead to focus on one single thing, that being a generational change.

Modern juries hate mean people, including mean lawyers.  Maybe in particular they hate mean lawyers.

This wasn't always true.

I don't think it was true as recently at the 1970s, frankly.  And that's not all that long ago.

As recently as the 1970s juries seemed to want a show from lawyers. And that show involved ambushing some poor witness and harassing others.  Even popular depictions of lawyers were like that.  Take, for example, Al Pacino's depiction of a trial lawyer in With Justice For All. 

What exactly was up with this is something that could have been a treatise in itself, but my theory on it is that this reflected the generational nature of the mostly Boomer juries and the educational disparity between the juries and the lawyers.  While the Boomers were the first generation for which college was within easy reach, they were also a generation that didn't require college in order for the members of the generation to find work and careers.  Lots of them did not have that, and in contrast the lawyers seemed highly educated.

Indeed, lawyers of that era were still basking in the glory of the then conservative American Bar Associations efforts to drag the profession of the law out of the muck it had been in during the late 19th Century.  People familiar with the ABA now may associate it with an endless series of resolutions for left wing social causes and hand wringing angst over the fate of lawyers in White Shoe Firms, but that isn't why it had come about and that isn't what it once was.  Indeed politically it was quite conservative. Professionally its efforts had been focused on getting law school education for lawyers to be the national norm and on making sure there were state bar exams.  By the 1930s its efforts had really paid off and there was a real professionalism that existed in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

By the 70s, however, that was wearing off and the ambush people style was coming in.  Juries apparently loved it.

They don't anymore.

And that's because the Post Boomers aren't like the Boomers at all.

They're better educated and, if they aren't educated on any one topic, they can be by the end of a lunch break just be checking Google on their phones.  They know that they know, or can know, as much about any one topic as the lawyers in short order, and they don't respect the lawyers simply because they are lawyers. 

Be mean to a witness and they'll get even.

But how did the lawyers get that way?

Probably because it worked.

And they stay that way, in part, because the human learning curve on things is slow for failure, if quick for success.

Indeed, even now the plaintiff's bar is fond of the "lizard brain" theory which holds that you have to appeal to people's most primitive emotions, and that's how you win in front of a jury.

Baloney.

Jurors never operated on lizard brains at all. Rather, there was a time that they appreciated a gladiatorial contest.  Keep in mind, however, that even in a gladiatorial contest the audience didn't care who lived or died that much.  They might root for a fellow who fought well and then not have saved him if he fell.

 Illustration of a gladiatorial contest.  This illustration from 1872 contains a popular error in that thumbs down mean that the life of the fallen gladiator was to be spared and thumbs up mean it was to be taken.  This sort of depicts the relationship of lawyers to jurors in the 1970s. . . but not anymore.

Now, however, they don't want people falling unless there's a reason for them to do so, and just dispatching people for sport. . . . well take your lizard theories and shove them.

The lögberg in Thingvellir where the original Icelandic Althing was held.  Modern juries are more like this.  They know just as much about whatever the topic is as the advocates do. . . and they figure everyone is part of the same group.  The only lizard brains here are in the heads of lawyers who figure they're the big brains and who are out for blood.

So that's the new reality about juries, and its one that's going to take most trial lawyers a long time to figure out. And that's what I was originally going to post about here.  But it occurs to me that because being mean, and being a lawyer, seem to go together, perhaps I should go beyond that.

Are lawyers mean?

Well, some certainly are. 

And that becomes pretty apparent to those who are in direct contact with lawyers everyday.  Consider this blog, which is a cri de coeur from a paralegal.  Well, former paralegal, that is.  Indeed, consider this post:

But I do remember. I remember how awful most of you were – not just to your lowly staff, but to your own family members and to each other, and your clients too. I don’t hate you anymore, but I still think most of you are absolutely awful human beings, and I am thankful that I don’t have to get in the mud and dirty myself with you anymore.

Sour grapes?  I doubt it.  That view from people who are close to lawyers, well at least litigators, is pretty common.

And not just amongst paralegals.  It's common amongst lawyers too.  If you blog it you'll find plenty of posts by lawyers about being surprised and appalled by hostile the work is and how mean everyone associated with it is.

This of course is likely limited to litigation.

And to repeat a question above, how did that come about?

Hmmm. . . . ., the image above might offer a clue. 

Because it worked.  That's been explored above.  Logic would hold, therefore, that at some point this will reverse and not only will the mean people suck, but they'll be less successful and their numbers will accordingly reduce in the field.

But to expand beyond that, it would be unfair to simply suggest greed equates with meanness, although frankly to some extent it truly does. Greedy people can given into meanness and greed as a virtue of trial practice is another hallmark of the 1970s that still has its ongoing impact on the law. Indeed as lawyer incomes have declined overall, perhaps this feature may actually be worse to some degree than it once was.

Having said that, however, this is also a vice that seems much less pronounced amongst Millenials, so perhaps it's self correcting.  Indeed, an amusing aspect of this is that Boomers, who once eschewed all thoughts of climbing the corporate ladder before they seized it, fairly routinely express concern about this very thing.  I've heard it, with older Boomers worrying that Millenials do not seem motivated by the desire to acquire wealth. . . or anything.  But, in thinking about it, I can't see where a lack of materialism and avarice is a bad thing.

Of course, the problem of meanness in the law may have deeper roots.  One lawyer observed, in a reddit post, the following:

The skills/habits needed to be good at being a certain kind of lawyer can make you an asshole. These are things like:

• Never admitting more than you have to
• Never admitting fault in any way
• Never giving more information than you have to
• Keeping all of your options open as much as possible
• Always looking for the advantage
• Twisting someone's words against them
• Trusting no one
• Being willing to throw anyone under the bus to advance your (client's) position

You don't have to do these things to be a good lawyer. There are different styles of lawyering. This, however, is one of them. The thing is, lawyers like this are a pain to deal with. And too often, these habits leak into the lawyer's personal life. When they do, they destroy any close relationships that you have. This is why substance abuse (mostly alcohol) and suicide are very common problems in the legal community.

There's also the "defense lawyers protect evil dirty criminals" angle that some people have. And as a lawyer who sometimes practices criminal defense, or represents parents in child protection proceedings, I can understand that. The people that we "help" have sometimes done some pretty awful things. So how can we help them, with a clean conscience?

I look at it this way: If I'm charged with a crime, or if Children's Aid tries to take my kids away, I know the ins and outs of the legal system. I know how court procedure works, I know what evidence is going to sway a judge and what isn't, I know when taking a deal is a good idea, etc. So I have the skills and knowledge to mount as strong a defense as possible. Random Joe on the street doesn't know most of that. Shouldn't he be able to mount as strong a defense as possible? Isn't that his right?

There's something to that.

Perhaps put an even simpler way trial lawyers are mercenaries, basically, to they have the virtues and vices common to mercenaries. They fight for pay, and the essence of that is that they fight.

 

Mercenaries in the Congo, with rebel troops, 1960s.

But at some point fighting all of the time will impact your character, and you won't be able to turn it off as it'll just become part of you.  Anyone who is a trial lawyer will have met with some objection from a close friend or family member about the lawyer being argumentative or "arguing", when they don't even realize they're doing it.

That may be a minor aspect of this, but again at some point, arguing all of the time will become part of a person's personality and it means they run the risk of becoming a jerk.

Well, the good point of all of that, I suppose, is that it appears the societal incentive is running the other way, and that's a positive.  It's already working that way with juries. . . the legal field just hasn't noticed it too much yet.

Sometimes things throw back . . . but not always well.

On this day, in 1917, Kingdon Gould, Sr,. the son of legendary railroad man Jay Gould, married Italian born Annunziata Camilla Maria Lucci in Manhattan.  The marriage was rather obviously outside of his ethnicity, something that would have been uncommon for a man of his position at the time.  The marriage would produce three children:

• Silvia Annunziata Gould (1919-1980)
• Edith Kingdon Gould (1920-2004) who was an actress and a poet.
• Kingdon Gould, Jr. (1925-) who was Ambassador to Luxembourg and the Netherlands under Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford and whom is still living.

During World War Two, in order to address shortages, Mr. Gould attempted to revert to the use of carriages, much as he was likely still using at the time this photograph was taken.  He sent his daughter Edith, who would later serve in the Navy during the war, down to purchase horses to pull them.  As related by Time Magazine's July 27, 1942 issue:

To beat the gas & rubber shortage Manhattan's Mrs. Kingdon Gould took the old family carriages out of mothballs, sent Daughter Edith to buy a pair of horses. Inexperienced Daughter Edith came back with a pair of brewery-truck-model Percherons.

Note that they are depicted in their nuptial finery . . . which is quite a bit dressed down compared to many weddings we see today, even though he was a very wealthy man and this was a very formal era.

Sunday Morning Scene: Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Sundance Wyoming

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Sundance Wyoming

This is the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Sundance, Wyoming.  This Prairie Gothic style church is obviously an older structure, but I don't know the details of it.

Looks out of place, with all that snow, for a July 2 post, doesn't it?

Lauda Sion Salvatorem: St. Thomas Aquinas, 1264

Lauda Sion Salvatorem

Lauda Sion Salvatórem Lauda ducem et pastórem In hymnis et cánticis. Quantum potes, tantum aude: Quia major omni laude, Nec laudáre súfficis. Laudis thema speciális, Panis vivus et vitális, Hódie propónitur. Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ, Turbæ fratrum duodénæ Datum non ambígitur. Sit laus plena, sit sonóra, Sit jucúnda, sit decóra Mentis jubilátio. Dies enim solémnis ágitur, In qua mensæ prima recólitur Hujus institútio. In hac mensa novi Regis, Novum Pascha novæ legis, Phase vetus términat. Vetustátem nóvitas, Umbram fugat véritas, Noctem lux elíminat. Quod in cœna Christus gessit, Faciéndum hoc expréssit In sui memóriam. Docti sacris institútis, Panem, vinum, in salútis Consecrámus hóstiam. Dogma datur Christiánis, Quod in carnem transit panis, Et vinum in sánguinem. Quod non capis, quod non vides, Animósa firmat fides, Præter rerum ordinem. Sub divérsis speciébus, Signis tantum, et non rebus, Latent res exímiæ. Caro cibus, sanguis potus: Manet tamen Christus totus, Sub utráque spécie. A suménte non concísus, Non confráctus, non divísus: Integer accípitur. Sumit unus, sumunt mille: Quantum isti, tantum ille: Nec sumptus consúmitur. Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: Sorte tamen inæquáli, Vitæ vel intéritus. Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptiónis Quam sit dispar éxitus. Fracto demum Sacraménto, Ne vacílles, sed memento, Tantum esse sub fragménto, Quantum toto tégitur. Nulla rei fit scissúra: Signi tantum fit fractúra: Qua nec status nec statúra Signáti minúitur. Ecce panis Angelórum, Factus cibus viatórum: Vere panis filiórum, Non mitténdus cánibus. In figúris præsignátur, Cum Isaac immolátur: Agnus paschæ deputátur Datur manna pátribus. Bone pastor, panis vere, Jesu, nostri miserére: Tu nos pasce, nos tuére: Tu nos bona fac vidére In terra vivéntium. Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales: Qui nos pascis hic mortáles: Tuos ibi commensáles, Cohærédes et sodáles, Fac sanctórum cívium. Amen. Allelúja.

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing: Praise thy Savior and thy King, Praise with hymns thy shepherd true. All thou canst, do thou endeavour: Yet thy praise can equal never Such as merits thy great King. See today before us laid The living and life-giving Bread, Theme for praise and joy profound. The same which at the sacred board Was, by our incarnate Lord, Giv'n to His Apostles round. Let the praise be loud and high: Sweet and tranquil be the joy Felt today in every breast. On this festival divine Which records the origin Of the glorious Eucharist. On this table of the King, Our new Paschal offering Brings to end the olden rite. Here, for empty shadows fled, Is reality instead, Here, instead of darkness, light. His own act, at supper seated Christ ordain'd to be repeated In His memory divine; Wherefore now, with adoration, We, the host of our salvation, Consecrate from bread and wine. Hear, what holy Church maintaineth, That the bread its substance changeth Into Flesh, the wine to Blood. Doth it pass thy comprehending? Faith, the law of sight transcending Leaps to things not understood. Here beneath these signs are hidden Priceless things, to sense forbidden, Signs, not things, are all we see. Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine, Yet is Christ in either sign, All entire, confessed to be. They, who of Him here partake, Sever not, nor rend, nor break: But, entire, their Lord receive. Whether one or thousands eat: All receive the self-same meat: Nor the less for others leave. Both the wicked and the good Eat of this celestial Food: But with ends how opposite! Here 't is life: and there 't is death: The same, yet issuing to each In a difference infinite. Nor a single doubt retain, When they break the Host in twain, But that in each part remains What was in the whole before. Since the simple sign alone Suffers change in state or form: The signified remaining one And the same for evermore. Behold the Bread of Angels, For us pilgrims food, and token Of the promise by Christ spoken, Children's meat, to dogs denied. Shewn in Isaac's dedication, In the manna's preparation: In the Paschal immolation, In old types pre-signified. Jesu, shepherd of the sheep: Thou thy flock in safety keep, Living bread, thy life supply: Strengthen us, or else we die, Fill us with celestial grace. Thou, who feedest us below: Source of all we have or know: Grant that with Thy Saints above, Sitting at the feast of love, We may see Thee face to face. Amen. Alleluia.

It's been a really slow week on this blog

Truly, it has.

Why is that, you may, or may not, be asking.

Writers block?

Well, not, not really.  Just entirely too much to do this week.

And, contrary to the way I usually feel about things, I just haven't felt like writing.

I have done some posting, but most of it has been on our oldest blog, Holscher's Hub and on the revival of an old one, The Aerodrome.  Indeed, almost all the posting I've done is on that latter blog, trying to bring it current.

Which likely means that our reading base here will drop off even further, even though we will return to posting here as before.

Indeed, on that, we were down last month to 9,924 views for the month. That's not bad, and it's quite a few more than the 7,005 that we had in June, 2016.  Of course, it pales in comparison to March, 2017, just a few months ago, when we had 55,954 views in a single month.  But we were posting a pile of entries then as our tracking of the Punitive Expedition was wrapping up, many of which were linked into Reddit, which boosted their readership.  We knew it would drop off thereafter, and frankly almost 10,000 views in a month is really pretty good, for a blog of this type.  Prior to the frequent posting on the Punitive expedition we'd occasionally top off at about 5,000 views per month, which we also regarded as being pretty good.

Best Post of the Week for the week of June 25, 2017

New blog, sort of: The Aerodrome

Friday Farming: Why wouldn't they be content?

The way things should be. . . .

From stream to grill

Boots on the ground. . . doesn't that include artillerymen?

Because it sure should.

Somehow, it's gone almost unnoticed that Marine Corps artillery units are serving in Syria.  Consider this item from the Military Times from just a couple of days ago:

U.S. Marines are conducting around-the-clock artillery support for American Kurdish partners battling ISIS in its de facto capital of Raqqa. That support has become vital as Kurdish forces have hit fierce resistance as they inch closer to the city center, according to on the ground fighters.

If American infantry was on the ground (other than the special forces, which you can bet are on the ground, and probably providing the artillery spotting for the Marine Red Legs), you can bet you'd have heard about.

But artillerymen?  Apparently we just don't count.

New blog, sort of: The Aerodrome

We recently revived an old blog of our, The Aerodrome.

The blog, dedicated to aircraft, was started in 2012 and had just a few posts when it became in active.  We've continued to post photos of aircraft, but over on Holscher's Hub, where we were always posting them.

Well, because we have a blog dedicated to railroad topics, and we like airplanes just as much, we decided to revive the old blog.  In doing that, we've been cross posting the airplane and airport entries from our other blogs, with their original dates.

Which is quite the pain, we might note.  It's taking forever.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, former location of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Gillette Wyoming.

Churches of the West: Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, former location of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Gillette Wyoming

When I took this photograph, it was the location of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Gillette, Wyoming. As noted at the time, I had no idea how old the structure of the church was. An addition, not visible here, to the back side looked to be a rectory.

Since I took this photo, the Church structure sold to the Antiochian Orthodox parish in Gillette, and this Church is now Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church.  I don't know where the Episcopal parish formerly located here is now located.  The pastor of this church informs me that it has been redone inside, in keeping with Orthodox traditions, and he would graciously allow me to photograph the interior in the future.

Poster Saturday: Wild and Woolly (released on this day in 1917)

Best Post of the Week of June 18, 2017

Relaunched:  The Aerodrome

Why would that be a question?

The Big Picture: Troop A, Michigan State Troops

American Father's Day

June 23, 1917. War news of all types

I haven't been covering it much, although I've been meaning to post a separate thread on it, but the arrival of the Great War in Wyoming, and the expectation that thousands of troops would be flooding into the state's two military posts, produced a flurry of all sorts of activity. 

One of the collateral impacts of the war was Cheyenne going dry due to Congressional action (arguably unconstitutional) and, soon thereafter, the town fathers. . . and mothers, moving to shut down the "resorts".

Resorts, at the time, was the euphemistic term for houses of prostitution, of which Cheyenne apparently had some prominent ones.  The town reacted and the town's women in particular reacted to have them shut down, with the war as the ostensible reason.  The war may have been the reason, but it isn't as if Ft. D. A. Russell was brand new. . . but then thousands of conscripted soldiers going through there was a new thing.  Cheyenne was apparently more worried about vice and regular boys who ended up in the service, and recalled National Guardsmen, than it was about regular soldiers.

Anyhow, some of the soiled doves flew to Laramie and right away Laramie followed Cheyenne's lead.  In today's headlines we see a specific example of a "colored" house being closed.  The move was on against all of them, but for some reason that one got the axe first, with the others ordered to  quit serving alcohol.

Cheyenne's papers, in contrast, were reporting that Russia would stay in the war. . . which of course it wouldn't.  It would stay in a war, of course, one of its own horrific internal making.

And another headline gave a glimpse into the past, although it was a fairly recent past in 1917.

Ernie Shore's Relief No Hitter. June 23, 1917.

In a pitching event against the odds Ernie Shore came in to relieve Babe Ruth, then the Boston Red Sox's starting pitcher, and turns in a no hitter.

Ernie Shore on the left, Grover Cleveland Alexander on the right, 1915 World Series.  Shore was a remarkably tall pitcher, particularly for his era, as he was 6'4" tall.

What's amazing about it is that Shore had virtually no time to warm up and nearly pitched the entire game.  Indeed, at one time, this was regarded as a perfect game.

The reason for that is Babe Ruth.

Ruth pitched to just a single batter, the Washington Senator's Ray Morgan.  Morgan was walked, but not before Ruth hotly disputed three out of the four pitches that were called as balls, letting home plate umpire Clarence "Brick" Owens know it in no uncertain terms.  After the fourth ball he yelled out at Owens again.  Owens calmly replied and warned Ruth to calm down or he would be ejected, to which Ruth may have replied “Throw me out and I’ll punch ya right in the jaw!”, or might not have. At any rate Owens ejected Ruth at that point and Ruth took a swing at him, hitting him in the ear but knocking him down. The Boston police then escorted Ruth off the field.

Babe Ruth as a Red Sox pitcher, 1917.  {{PD-US}} – published in the U.S. before 1923 and public domain in the U.S.

Shore, a very good pitcher in his own right, then came in and pitched a nearly perfect game.  Indeed, at one time this was regarded as a perfect game, although now its only regarded as a no hitter.

That woman on a car photo?

Nephele A. Bunnell at the automobile fashion show held at Sheepshead Bay Race Track, New York City, June 23, 1917.

 Nephele A. Bunnell

 Ruth McDonald

Mrs. James H. Kidder.

Actress Gertrude McCoy

Gertrude McCoy

Beatrice Allen, Hazel Dawn, Consuelo Bailey, Eleanor Dawn, Ann Pennington, Gertrude McCoy, and Vera Maxwell

 The cars

Why would that be a question?

 Vietnamese refugees being evacuated from Saigon in 1976.  This photo is closer in time to the Allied victory in World War Two and the Roosevelt/Truman administrations than it is to our current era. . .just like the formative years of the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Following the defeat of the Democrats in the election just held in Georgia, some are questioning whether Nancy Pelosi ought to be deposed from her position as a leader in the party.

Seriously?  They need to ask that?

She should have been deposed 20 years ago.

Now, I don't blame Pelosi for the Democratic loss in Georgia.  Any one state's election is, after all, a local election and Georgia has been in the GOP camp for some time.

But Pelosi bears about as much of a relationship to the average American voter now as . . . well. . . . Hillary Clinton.  Or Chuck Schumer.

Pelosi is 77 years old.

Schumer in comparison is practically a baby at 66.

Hillary Clinton is 69.

Pelosi, Clinton and Schumer have been in politics their entire lives. Their connection with the old blue collar base of the Democratic Party, in terms of actual work, is non existent.  She first held a position in California's Democratic Party in 1976.  In contrast Clinton has had much more in the way of "real work", but it's notable that she worked for Congress as part of the effort to impeach Richard Nixon.  Schumer became a member of the New York Assembly in 1975.  In short, these politicians formative years all have a lot to do with the ERA, Post Vietnam, Watergate era of Democratic politics.

A person may not be defined by their formative years, but then maybe they can be as well.

The ERA is not a consideration for current female voters.  Indeed, the rabid feminism of the that era, outside the leadership of certain current movements, has no relationship whatsoever to the views or concerns of young female voters today.   The Vietnam War is over and even the hand wringing over the results of the war are over.  Nixon is dead.

CH-54 landing in Saigon, April 30, 1975. At the time this photograph was taken, Hillary Clinton had already worked on the Nixon impeachment effort, Chuck Schumer was already in the New York Assembly, and Nancy Pelosi was already involved in California's Democratic Party.

It's time for the current leadership of the Democratic Party to move on too.

$43/BBL and going lower

I haven't posted on the price of fossil commodities for some time and I've felt bad about it.

The reason for this is that I posted regularly on this as the price was falling last year and the year before but have remained mute as prices stabilize and recovered a bit. Certainly coal, which was really bad off last year, pulled out of a near crash and has recovered somewhat to everyone's surprise.  Oil stabilized before that and was hovering around $50/bbl for quite awhile.  Oil in Wyoming recovered a bit however and things weren't doing as poorly as they were.  The sell off, by some big producers, of Wyoming fields continues to go on, but there are buyers. The big producers are concentrating on the Permian Basin in Texas, but even that should give some older Wyoming fields a boost as the Permian has been in production for a long time and remains hot.

And then, oil dropped to $43/bbl.

That's right, today oil dropped down to $43/bbl.  

Libyan production going on line big time has a lot to do with that.  Libya is a mess right now and there's no reason to believe that Libya, or whoever is in control in Libya, will control production as long as overproduction brings in money, and that it will do.  The New York Times further reports:

HOUSTON — The price of oil keeps sinking, and there is no shortage of reasons: American oil companies are producing too much petroleum. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has not cut production enough. Motorists around the globe are not driving enough to shrink crude and gasoline inventories as quickly as expected.

There's no earthly way that American producers can economically sustain $43/bbl.  And there's some thought it will go even lower.

I feel bad for coming in and mentioning that. But my gosh, $43/bbl.  

That's unsustainable.

Blog Mirror: First Things; Dress Up: What We Lost In The Casual Revolution

Perhaps more than we think. At least First Things thinks so.

Dress Up
What We Lost In The Casual Revolution

For quite a few years now, academic philosophers and socio­logists, as well as pop­ular social commentators who get paid to pronounce on such matters, have been telling us that people have been abandoning their formal personas in favor of the whims and behavior of their individual selves.

I think maybe they're right.

I've posted on this before, in terms of the development of dress.  Indeed, I've written on it quite a bit. And indeed it fits in nicely with the them of this blog.  But as I've also asked before, does it matter? 

Well, I think it likely that it does.  First Things adds to that discussion.

Chesty Puller on simpilfication

We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things.
  
Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller

The Big Picture: Troop A, Michigan State Troops

Copyright deposit on this day, 1917.  Troop A, Michigan State Troops.

The Solar Eclipse of June 19, 1917

This isn't, as we have noted, the "one hundred years ago today blog" or the "This Day In 1917 Blog".  Those blogs may of course exist (I don't know) but this isn't it.

Still, I note quite a few things that are exactly a century past in the context of this blog, some in the context of things that have changed and some in the context of things that have stayed the same.  In that context, I was surprised by this partial solar eclipse that occurred on date in 1917.

I was mostly surprised, fwiw, as we're having a total eclipse on August 21 here, and this town is in the dead center of its path.

That's neat enough, I guess, but we've been hearing for months that thousands of people are expected to be here for it.  Some people I know are expecting guests.  A lawyer I spoke to last week, who lives in Denver, told me that he had rented a pontoon boat and plans to be on Glendo for the event.

I don't get it.

I either have too little imagination, or perhaps too much, but it gets dark every night.  I don't see why people would travel thousands of miles to experience something for a couple of minutes that the experience for hours every night.

The Casper Record for June 19, 1917. Changing standards. . . an advertisement you are unlikely to see today

How about a suit for the 4th?

Hmmm. . . . I'll bet you aren't planning on wearing a suit for the 4th, nor are you planning on buying one, are you?

Monday At The Bar: Mistrial

The American public is getting an education regarding its legal process via the recent Cosby trial.

I'm not going to go into the allegations in part because I don't follow criminal stuff very closely.  Quite a few people who aren't lawyers would find that odd, but quite frankly just because a person is a lawyer doesn't mean that they follow every aspect of their own profession in the same fashion that sports fans follow a favorite team.  Indeed, most of us don't.  I've done very little criminal law myself and most major crimes leave me queasy in one sense or another, so I don't really pay very much attention to them.

Some you can't ignore, however, no matter what as they're Really Big Deals, and by that I mean big deals in either the true societal sense or, alternatively, in the sense of the press following the story closely.  The "O. J. Trial", for example, gives us an example of the latter.

Anyhow, the jury hung in this one, and a mistrial was declared. So now people are familiar with what that means. 

I wonder if it also means that people personally paid much attention to the legal maxim of "presumed innocent until proven guilty".  I doubt it.

But maybe they have no obligation to on a personal level.  

Certainly hardly anyone thinks that about O. J. Simpson.  It's pretty much universally agreed that he was guilty and that the jury that found him innocent was out to lunch, or perhaps beguiled by spectacular lawyering by his defense team and other factors.

Here, it would seem, Bill Cosby was well represented.  But additionally, jurors might have had evidence that we basically never hear.  The press generally does a really poor job of reporting any legal matter.  In this instance, without knowing the details, at least half the jurors apparently thought that whatever happened, the tort didn't. 

But that takes us back to the public's eye.  No matter what actually happened, Cosby's reputation is permanetnly shot and its never coming back. He's not going to experience a latent revival of his reputation like Fatty Arbuckle, who enjoyed that only briefly.  Indeed, Arbuckle's fall for being accused of a crime he didn't commit lead him to being shunned by Hollywood for a long time, and he only came back really as a director in 1933, finishing a film, celebrated a marriage anniversary, commenting that "This is the best day of my life", and dying that night at age 43. 

Not really a happy ending.

Cosby is well past 43.  His reputation as a family man and a man who successfully became an American icon while also representing the urban black demographic, is completely shot.  Maybe that's punishment in and of itself no matter what his crimes or torts may have been, for leading a personal life of decadent sexual behavior irrespective of its legality.

In the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence John Ford counseled When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."  The lives of the famous, in the current age, tend to suggest that this is no longer true.

It probably never should have been.